Jethro Tull's Martin Barre plays the blues in Cambridge

Thursday

Apr 20, 2017 at 6:17 PM

By Ed Symkus, Correspondent

Before Jethro Tull became a renowned progressive rock group in the early 1970s, they were a blues band, and their guitarist, Mick Abrahams, was a master blues player. When Abrahams left in the late 1960s, his spot was taken by Martin Barre, a blues player in his own right but far more diversified as a guitarist. Barre stayed with Tull for 43 years, till the band was dissolved by frontman Ian Anderson. But Barre had already started doing some gigs with his own band long before that, the most current version of which is set to perform at the Regattabar in Cambridge on April 22.

Barre, 70, a native of Manchester, England, got his first guitar at 14, was turned on to jazz flute by albums his dad bought him – so also took up playing the flute – taught himself the tenor saxophone in order to join a band that needed a sax player, and went back to his main passion, the guitar, with his late ’60s band Gethsemane.

Speaking by phone from a tour stop outside of Atlanta, Barre recalled first seeing Jethro Tull perform around 1968.

“I thought that’s exactly what I want to be doing, with the flute, the guitar,” he said. “We did a gig with them about three months later in Plymouth, England. That’s when I met Ian and the guys, and we got on really well.”

Thinking back to after he passed the audition to join Tull, Barre believes he helped take the band’s sound in a new direction.

“Mick was a fantastic guitar player, and he was much better at doing what he did than I was,” he said. “But I had my own style, and I think Ian saw that, within that style, I was more flexible, maybe more broad-minded in what I played, and that’s what he was looking for. Even in those days he was thinking ahead of the blues boom, and he wanted to be writing songs that were getting away from it. He didn’t want a 100 percent blues guitar player in the band. I wasn’t aware of those parameters but luckily, I guess I fit the bill.

Though he was with Tull till 2011, Barre started working with other musicians in the early-1990s.

“The whole solo thing started with a bunch of friends in Devon, England,” he said. “We just put a band together called the Summer Band, because we worked one summer playing all these local outdoor gigs. We had a lot of fun doing it, there was nothing serious, but that sort of gave me the bug to go out and play with other people, do other styles of music. I eventually started writing music, as well, and that was a real big point for me as a musician.”

Barre’s Regattabar show will have him fronting a quartet. He’s on guitar, Dan Crisp is on vocals and guitar, Alan Thomson plays bass, and Jonathan Joseph is the drummer. They’ll be playing selections from Barre’s most recent album, “Back to Steel,” as well as tunes from his earlier solo efforts and, of course some Jethro Tull nuggets.

“I obviously have to start [set lists] with what I think is going to work,” he said. “But I listen to the audience, and I look at the audience, and I would never play anything if I didn’t think the audience loved what we were doing. We play two songs from [Tull’s] ‘Benefit’: ‘To Cry You a Song’ and ‘Nothing to Say.’ But we don’t play ‘Aqualung’ because I think that’s sort of a cheap shot. It’s just too easy, and I want to win audiences over my way. I want subtlety, I want surprises, like ‘Eleanor Rigby.’”

That Beatles cover, which is on “Back to Steel,” goes back a number of years for Barre.

“I remember seeing Jeff Beck playing an instrumental of ‘A Day in the Life,’ and I thought it was beautiful,” he said. “And the Beatles’ songs lend themselves so well to being played instrumentally. So I went back home and because Jethro Tull have always played an instrumental during their set, I thought about Beatles songs. I worked on ‘Eleanor Rigby,’ then deconstructed it and wrote different chords and a slightly different melody. I made a little demo of it, but I never got around to playing it live with Tull. That was probably 15 years ago. So, fast forward to doing ‘Back to Steel,’ and there it was on the shelf and I thought I might have another go at that. I added a couple of riffs, and worked in the vocals with Dan Crisp. Then we rehearsed it as a band and straight away it sounded damn good.”

The Martin Barre Band plays at the Regattabar in Cambridge on April 22 at 7:30 p.m. Info: 617-395-7757.

Upcoming concerts and club dates

April 22:

The Cambridge-based trio of rockers The Push Stars continues celebrating their 20th year together at the Paradise in Boston. (8 p.m.)

The 19-piece JCA Orchestra presents new music for jazz orchestra at The Space in Jamaica Plain. Strings Theory Trio opens. (8 p.m.)

April 23:

Amelia White & the Blue Souvenirs play pop tunes from their newest album “Home Sweet Hotel” at Atwood’s Tavern in Cambridge. (4 p.m.)

April 24:

Decompression Chamber Music is a string quartet that will play and then discuss music by Argentinian composers Alberto Ginastera and Astor Piazzolla at Club Passim in Cambridge. (7 p.m.)

April 25:

Patrice Williamson (vocals) and Jon Wheatley (guitar) have a CD release party for “Comes Love,” which pays homage to the amazing pairing up of Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass. Pianist Mark Shilansky, bassist Keala Kaumeheiwa and drummer Ron Savage join them at the Regattabar in Cambridge. (7:30 p.m.)

Country legend Marty Stuart, with his band The Fabulous Superlatives, are at The Sinclair in Cambridge. (9 p.m.)